nd with
Mary Percival had returned or not. The night was passed very
impatiently, and without sleep by most of them, so anxious were they for
the morrow. Long before break of day they again started, advancing with
great caution, and were led by the Indian till they were within one
hundred and fifty yards of the lodges, in a thick cluster of young
spruce, which completely secured them from discovery. Shortly afterward
Malachi and the Indian woman, creeping on all fours, disappeared in the
surrounding brush wood, that they might, if possible, gain more
intelligence from listening. In the meantime, the party had their eyes
on the lodges, waiting to see who should come out as soon as the sun
rose, for it was hardly clear daybreak when they arrived at their place
of concealment.

They had remained there about half an hour, when they perceived an
Indian lad come out of one of the lodges. He was dressed in leggins and
Indian shirt of deer skin, and carried in his hand his bow and arrows.
An eagle's feather was stuck in his hair above the left ear, which
marked him as the son of a chief.

"That's my brother Percival," said John in a low tone.

"Percival!" replied Alfred, "is it possible?"

"Yes," whispered the Strawberry, "it is Percival, but don't speak so
loud."

"Well, they have turned him into a regular Indian," said Alfred; "we
shall have to make a pale face of him again."

Percival, for he it was, looked round for some time, and at last
perceiving a crow flying over his head, he drew his bow, and the arrow
brought the bird down at his feet.

"A capital shot," said Captain Sinclair, "the boy has learned something
at all events. You could not do that, John."

"No," replied John, "but they don't trust him with a rifle."

They waited some little time longer, when an Indian woman, and then an
old man, came out, and in about a quarter of an hour afterward, three
more women and an Indian about twenty years old.

"I think we have the whole force now," said Martin.

"Yes, I think so too," replied Captain Sinclair. "I wish Malachi would
come back, for I do not think he will find out more than we know
ourselves."

In about half an hour afterward, Malachi and the Indian woman returned;
they had crept in the brushwood to within fifty yards of the lodges, but
were afraid to go nearer, as the woman said that perhaps the dogs might
give the alarm; for two of them were left at home. The woman stated her
conviction that the